Comparative Strangers by Sara Craven Read Free Book Online Page A

what he’s doing?’ Amanda asked ironically. She rubbed her forehead with the back of her hand. ‘Where are the road maps? I’ve got to get to Aylesford Green.’
    ‘You won’t go anywhere near that man,’ Mrs Conroy said peremptorily. ‘I shall get my solicitor to phone these papers tomorrow and issue a stringent denial, and then I shall speak to Nigel myself—tell him there’s been a dreadful mistake…’
    Amanda said quietly, ‘Mother, if you do any such thing, I shall leave this house, and never come back. The papers got one thing right in all this. Nigel and I are finished. Nigel knows it, and that’s why he’s produced this—piece of spite.’ She drew a breath. ‘He said he’d make me sorry, and he has.’
    Nigel had been very clever, she thought later as she drove through the lanes towards Aylesford Green. He’d presented her as an out-and-out gold-digger, and Malory as a wealthy dupe, while reserving for himself the role of deceived but noble innocent. Few people who read the stories would feel anything but compassion for him, betrayed at his moment of triumph.
    It was raining when she reached the village. She parked her car by the green, and stared round at the pretty cottages which bordered it. There had been a smudgy picture of Malory’s house in one of the papers, but she couldn’t relate it to any of these. Eventually, she asjked for directions from a man stalwartly walking his dog, and was guided out of the village on to a side road.
    ‘It’s set back a bit,’ she was advised. ‘Look out for double white gates.’
    When she found them, Amanda drew her car up on the verge, and sat for a few moments, trying to marshal her thoughts. Or was she simply attempting to pluck up sufficient courage to walk up to the front door of the spacious brick and timber house she could just glimpse through the encircling trees? she asked herself derisively. It would serve her right if Malory refused point-blank to see her.
    Only a matter of hours ago, he’d told her he was her friend, and they’d shaken hands on it. But today he might feel that friendship had its limitations.
    She got stiffly out of the car and locked it. Well, she had no one but herself to blame for this fiasco. She’d made all the bullets for Nigel to fire with such lethal effect.
    Her high-heeled boots scrunched over the wet gravel as she approached the front door, and rang the bell. Somewhere inside the house, a dog erupted into a tumult of barking, then quietened, obviously to order. The door opened, and a grey-haired woman in a neat dark overall looked at her enquiringly. ‘May I help you, miss?’
    ‘I’d like to see Dr Templeton, please.’
    The woman gave her a formally regretful smile. ‘I’m afraid Dr Templeton isn’t seeing anyone today. You should direct any enquiries to the public relations department at the laboratories tomorrow.’
    As she made to shut the door, Amanda said hastily, ‘But I’m not a reporter. I’m Amanda Conroy, and I need to see Mal… Dr Templeton urgently.’
    ‘Oh, Miss Conroy.’ There was a wary note in the woman’s voice. ‘Come in, please. Dr Templeton has been expecting you.’
    The hall was wide, with a flagged floor on which a Persian rug took pride of place. There was a Georgian table standing against one of the pale-washed walls holding a sunburst of chrysanthemums. Amanda was taken up two steps to double glass doors opening into a large drawing-room. Logs crackled in a grate on the wide hearth, and the room was filled with music—a woman’s voice singing something dramatic and unfamiliar.
    Malory was stretched out on one of the sofas which flanked the fireplace, but as Amanda came in he rose and walked over to the hi-fi system which occupied most of one wall, removing the record from the turntable.
    He said laconically, The mad scene from
Lucia di Lammermoor
. It seemed—appropriate, somehow‘ He looked past Amanda to his housekeeper. ’Could you manage some coffee for us, Mrs